Is Household Food Insecurity Associated with Overweight/Obesity Among Adults in CALABARZON Region, Philippines?

Abstract

Abstract Objectives The aims of this study were to estimate the prevalence of overweight/obesity among food secure and food insecure households; and measure the association of household food insecurity with overweight/obesity among the adults of CALABARZON Region, Philippines. Methods This cross-sectional study analyzed the 8th National Nutrition Survey of the Philippines conducted in 2013 by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute. The included dataset for this study covered only all the non-pregnant, non-lactating adult respondents aged 20 years old and over who were able to complete the survey. Anthropometric measurements such as height and weight were obtained and body mass index was calculated. Two-day non-consecutive 24-hour diet recalls were completed. Household Food Security status was measured using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale. Logistic Regression was used to measure the association of food insecurity and overweight/obesity. Results The prevalence of overweight/obesity in the Region was estimated at 36.87% (95%CI: 30.40–43.85) and 47.59% (95%CI: 40.06–55.23) among adults belonging to food insecure and food secure households, respectively. After controlling for the confounding effects of household size and wealth quintile index, it was revealed that food insecurity is not a predictor of overweight/obesity with a significant adjusted odds ratio of 0.7385 (95%CI: 0.4934–1.2441). Conclusions At present, there is no current local data presenting the prevalence rates of overweight/obesity according to household food security status. With this as one of the objectives of this paper, the study was able to generate the prevalence rates of household food security and insecurity in the CALABARZON Region according to overweight/obesity status. Despite the co-existence of overweight/obesity and food insecurity in the Region, household food insecurity was not statistically associated with overweight/obesity even after adjusting for various confounding factors. Funding Sources The primary author would like to thank the following institutions for providing financial grants to support the implementation of this study: Department of Science and Technology - Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI), University of the Philippines Manila - National Graduate Office for the Health Sciences (UPM-NGOHS) and Neys-Van Hoogstraten Foundation (NHF).